Category: Schizophrenia

AstraZeneca announced the Netherlands regulatory authority MEB (Medicines Evaluation Board) has approved SEROQUEL XR? (quetiapine fumarate) Extended-Release Tablets, a once-daily medicine for the treatment of schizophrenia in adult patients. With SEROQUEL XR? patients can achieve a dose within the recommended range as early as the second day of treatment and the MEB approval also includes relapse prevention in the long-term treatment of schizophrenia.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) atypical antipsychotic drug Risperdal (chemical name risperidone) for use in two types of treatment with children and adolescents. The approval was given yesterday, 22nd August.

Scientists know that information travels between brain cells along hairlike extensions called axons. For the first time, researchers have found that axons don’t just transmit information — they can turn the signal up or down with the right stimulation.This finding may help scientists develop treatments for psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia in which it is thought that different parts of the brain do not communicate correctly with each other.

Newly-published data in the latest edition of the British Journal of Psychiatry (August 2007) show that patients receiving risperidone long-acting injection (Risperdal® ConstaTM) experienced a higher incidence of significant clinical improvements, as well as greater improvements in measures of disorganised thinking at 12 months than patients taking oral olanzapine (Zyprexa)1.

Scientists have provided new insight into how a gene is related to schizophrenia. In a study to be published in the August 17 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Amanda J.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Wyeth (NYSE: WYE), and Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today the receipt of an action letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in response to the New Drug Application (NDA) for bifeprunox, an atypical antipsychotic that was reviewed for the acute treatment of schizophrenia, as well as the maintenance of stable adult patients. The Agency stated that the drug was not approvable at this time.

The discovery of a novel molecular switch that powerfully modulates nerve cell activity offers the potential for new mood disorder and epilepsy treatments, University of California, Irvine researchers report.The researchers looked at the role of the natural substance cholecystokinin (CCK) in modulating communication between cells in the brain.

Dr Anthony Hannan, along with Dr Caitlin McOmish, Emma Burrows and colleagues, characterised a genetically altered mouse and discovered that it had schizophrenia-like behaviours, including learning and memory problems, the inability to process complex information, and abnormal responses to particular sensory stimuli.

Elyn Saks knows all about success - she was valedictorian at Vanderbilt University, graduated with honors from Yale Law School, was a Marshall scholar at Oxford and today is a respected legal scholar at University of Southern California Gould School of Law.And, since adolescence, Saks has battled schizophrenia and acute psychosis.

For the first time, researchers using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have found both structural and functional abnormalities in specific brain regions of schizophrenic patients who experience chronic auditory hallucinations, according to a study published in the August issue of Radiology.”The results showed abnormalities in specific areas of the brain associated with the capacity to process human voices,” said lead author, Luis Mart’-Bonmat’, M.D., Ph.D.